


Worklogs

by Swithe_Ist



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/M, M/M, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-08-24 18:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swithe_Ist/pseuds/Swithe_Ist
Summary: Roxanna Macmillian receives a video recorder as a gift from her father. She uses it to document her work, but sometimes life gets in the way.





	1. correct procedure

**Author's Note:**

> A small series of vignettes accidently captured by our resident innovator.

A VHS clicks and whirrs as it begins. The white noise becomes black for a moment before the fuzzy image of a young Roxanna sitting on a stool in a laboratory appears on screen.

Her hair is pulled back into a messy, almost dishevelled pony-tail. It has been dyed experimentally pink. Only the forestrands, but with this success and the cautiously optimistic social response it had gotten her, she fully intends to complete the rest. Her voice echoes eerily into the microphone and the lighting is absolutely unforgiving. Her enthusiasm on the other hand, regardless of the hour and conditions, hasn't waned a jot.

“... and as the results show, this gives us a much clearer view of the pathway's response regarding cerebrovascular transduction than what John stated earlier. If he'd considered– “

Roxanna looks away from the lens as the creaky old door opens.  
  
“Roxanna!” a cheerful sounding Henrik blurts.  
  
“Henrik,” she replies softly, a grin on her face before she'd even properly registered it was him. There was something about the Nordic bounce in his pronunciation of her name that made a spark of electricity shoot into her veins. “Good evening.”  
  
“Oh, you've got your tape recorder out,” he noted as he approached, “This means you must be working on that cortical pathway thing doesn't it? Great idea – the tape thing. Well and the work. Very sci-fi, and I must say, much more interesting than a dictaphone,”  
  
Roxanna pulled at a stool sitting nearby, moving it over properly next to her for Henrik to sit on.  
  
“Though I don't know if I could bear to have to stare at my own squinting face for any considerable length of time.”

Henrik sits down heavily. He lets his satchel slide to the floor and sets the books and water-bottle he is carrying down onto the counter. Despite his observations, being in firing line of the camera doesn't seem to faze him. In fact there is a noticible vacancy behind his eyes that Roxanna tries not to focus on.  
  
“Oh, hah. It's useful I guess. I can check my makeup doesn't have me looking like too much of a wally,” she says, folding her arms and leaning forwards to rest upon them, “You know I wasn't expecting you in tonight?”  
  
“Mm, John asked me to come and look at something of his. He'll be here soon I imagine.”  
  
“Fair enough. Well, I'm nearly done.”  
  
“Oh, don't let me interrupt you, by any means.”  
  
Henrik trails off as his eyes are drawn to the chalk-board behind her. A small smile creeps onto his lips and he shifts on his chair so that he can bask in the full majesty of her work. It hadn't escaped him these last months that she was steadily gaining a voice of her own, scientifically. Her method of working reminded him of the priceless art produced by the ancient Middle-Eastern miniaturists. The resulting physical output was small, but if one cared to look, full of a tantalizing detail that produced a pleasing effect.

Roxanna looks into the camera, trying to recall where she had left off.  
  
It's very hard to concentrate now that Henrik is here. She nearly instantly gives up, turning back to him. Henrik glances back with a smile and gestures broadly towards the board.  
  
“This is fascinating stuff. Only one problem with it, though.”  
  
Roxanna's ears perk up.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I mean, you're not wrong, technically. Everything written up here is 100% solid fact. It's just the conclusion you seem to have drawn from it. It's... well, a little myopic, that's all.”  
  
Myopic. She bristles at the word. One of John's favourites. He bandies it about like he's training to be an opthamologist not a brain surgeon. It is disappointing, but not unexpected to hear it from the Swede.  
  
“How do you figure that?” she asks, a little more defensively than she intends.  
  
“You haven't taken into account it's place within the larger context of the physiological processes that interact with it. Statistically it's insignificant.”  
  
“That's what John says, but I think if you look closer --”  
  
“-- you're already looking too close, though, aren't you?”  
  
Henrik's tone is becoming what Roxanna could generously describe as 'snotty'. The only reason she can bear it from him is because she knows deep down he's just oblivious. She prefers to see it as some kind of osmotic smugness he's picked up from John.  
  
“Too close? There's no such thing. You can't fault me for being thorough. I just want to ensure nothing – absolutely nothing – is being overlooked.”  
  
“Look, Roxanna, you don't have to be defensive, alright. Trust me, once you get to third year, you'll be getting all sorts about your research. It's easy enough to create and manipulate data, but the real value you'll find is in processing and contextualising it. Creating a fully fleshed narritive. That's what gets you published.”

Again he is channeling John's obssession with the macroscopic. Roxanna looks him over while he glances back at her working. The longer she knows him, she notices more and more this steely coldness in him. It's hard to seperate from the John-ness he insists on acquiring. Pretentiousness is one thing and can be dealt with; authoritarianism is another thing altogether.  
  
Typically this coldness pops up in the personal sphere of conversation. He dislikes talking about himself except in a detached, depreciating fashion and is an expert at deflecting any attempts at coaxing out information. _Why is he being like that now?_ she wonders.  
  
“That's true, but don't you think this sort of thing is worth including at least? Even just as a footnote. It's like he hasn't even considered it - he hasn't followed all paths of inquiry.”  
  
Henrik blows out a sigh.  
  
“He's not cutting corners, Roxanna. Just because you haven't personally witnessed and approved of his work and methods – that's a serious accusation to be throwing around, you know.”  
  
“But how do you–”  
  
“Because I was there,” he snaps, “I acted as a second pair of eyes, I reviewed all of his data and I even helped him refine his test matrices when they were proving intractable!”  
  
Roxanna, thoroughly chastened, wilts and causes Henrik to immediately regret his tone.  
  
“Roxanna,” he drawls, “We've been here before, haven't we? I understand you have your way of learning. I just... it's so difficult sometimes being stuck between the two of you. Can't you try and be a little more patient with him? Please? For me?”  
  
“ _I_ have to be more patient?” she counters softly, giving him a look.  
  
“Well you're usually the one that starts it, wouldn't you say?”  
  
What can she say to that? That John has a cloud of self-satisfaction about him so thick that it's hard to see his defiant, goading expression through it? When they had met, Henrik had told her she'd learn not to let it get to her. Months later, she is still struggling with the urge to slap him. Roxanna smiles crookedly.  
  
“Yes, you're right.”  
  
It's not difficult to give in to him when they are alone. Henrik's dark eyes seem careworn beyond his youth, she notes as she looks into them.  
  
“It's one thing to have professional arguments as colleagues and another for it to get personal. You're both so stubborn and fiery I fear you'll end up at each others' throats. There can be no emotion when it comes to our line of work. Let it get personal in here, in the lab, and we'll all go absolutely nowhere. Perhaps you should talk to him if it's bothering you so much.”  
Henrik has turned back to her chalkboard, distracted.  
  
“I've never actually met anyone like him, you know,” she muses, reaching for Henrik's water, “So charismatic. We don't have types like that back home in Reading. At least not in our field – most of them dream of being the next Michael Jackson, not brain surgeons. I think it's his eyes--”  
  
Roxanna splutters through her words as she takes a mouthful of water, only to realise it's not water at all. It's vodka. Henrik glances back at her and laughs. After collecting herself, she glowers back at him.  
  
“What the –! I thought that was water!”  
  
“It's nearly 2am, who on earth drinks water at this time of night?”  
  
Suddenly his slightly aggressive behaviour makes sense. Her glare settles into a pointed frown as he reaches for the plastic bottle. There's barely any left and he is intent on polishing it off. Sipping at the dregs, he continues while standing, “Look, John should be here momentarily. Sort it out with him then.”  
  
“Don't you have class tomorrow morning?”  
  
“It's just Ratzenburger, the old blowhard. Don't worry, he'll spend most of the lecture waffling on about his precious son's latest biomathematical triumphs over in Yale.”  
  
Roxanna can't help but think that John will be annoyed at his fogginess and her worry shows plainly enough for Henrik to pick up on.  
  
“Oh lighten up, once John's here I'll be his problem, won't I.”  
  
“Henrik...”  
  
He's already pulled his satchel back on his shoulder and wandered across the room aimlessly. He comes to a stop by the wall and leans against it. His fingers twitch irritably. It's bad enough when John frowns at him, but Roxanna? He can't bring himself to look at her anymore and slides down to sit on the floor.  
  
She watches as his curly mop becomes all that is visible of him over the counter. As predicted, the door creaks open and John shuffles in. Her eyes flick over to him as he spies Henrik, watching him with his usual masked expression. Henrik's eyes have shut, though he grunts in greeting.  
  
“Oh, you're recording, are ya?” he says softly to Roxanna while he moves to sit on the stool Henrik had just abdicated, “How's the session coming along?”  
  
Roxanna pulls a face and tilts her head towards Henrik. “Shouldn't we say something?” she mouths, tucking an errant tuft of hair back behind her ear.  
  
“Henrik,” says John loudly as requested. There is no reply, so John lowers his voice again, “He's out, forget it.”  
  
“Is he okay? He's been acting strangely all week. I'm worried about his drinking,” she utters in an equally low voice, leaning in conspiratorily towards John, close enough she can smell stale cigarettes. If there's one topic that John and Roxanna can talk easily on it's Henrik and she is grateful for it. John shakes his head slightly and looks thoughtful. The mask he wears is slipping.  
  
“He's fine. He's just dealin' with some stuff. Let him be.”  
  
“Is he? What is it?”  
  
It stings to hear, knowing that these past few weeks she'd been relishing the notion that she'd been making progress with him, steely coldness notwithstanding. The ice had been melting! She was so sure of it.  
  
“If he wants to tell you, he'll tell you. It's not my place,” answers John. There's something lurking behind his eyes that belies his discomfort. They are not glimmering with their usual potent energy. And to worry her further, he places a hand on her forearm, giving it a pat. Roxanna searches his gaze for some reassurance, “He'll get past it. Trust me. He's just like this sometimes. You can't force him.”  
  
“I noticed he seemed out of it at lunch yesterday... I was going to say something then, but it's like every time I get close to him, feel like he's starting to trust me, he pulls away. I don't understand.”  
  
John just shrugs.  
  
“Don't worry yourself about it, I'll talk to him, alright. Now tell me about your project here – did you have any luck with the transduction modules?”  
  
Roxanna rises from her stool, brushing at her unruly hair again. A blue windbreaker lies in a ball on the floor – she lifts it and bundles it under her arm as she moves off-camera to drape it over Henrik.  
  
“Just a minute.”

Her voice quakes and dips into an unnatural pitch and tempo. Her image bends and warps before winking to blackness.

 

The tape snaps off.


	2. inquiry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Henrik take the camera for a spin.

A cacophonic din of buzzing and unintelligible speech as the video's picture refuses to settle.

“-- othe-- when she ge.... batte--s?”

“Ups--- d--- there w-...”

With a triumpant crack of plastic being snapped into place, the picture comes to rest on what appears to be a poorly screenprinted band logo. A streak of light hits the lens and the camera pulls back to reveal John Gaskell standing in the laboratory squinting straight into it. He does not look as cocksure as he would like to, considering he is usually pretty good at appearing to know what he is doing when out of his depth.   
C'est la vie.

“Is it fixed?” asks Henrik from off-screen.

“I think so. The light's not flashing anymore. It's just on.”

“Are you sure we should be using this?”

“She said it was fine, yeah. 'Have a go!' were her exact words, if you need them.”

John breaks into a crooked smile as he imagines himself projected on-screen. The thought is intoxicating. He glances over at Henrik and gestures to himself.

“What do you think?”

Henrik scoffs loud enough to be muffled by the rubbish microphone.  
“'...he deems the mirrored shade / a thing of life to love. He cannot move for so he marvels at himself, and lies / with countenance unchanged, as if indeed / a statue carved of Parian marble...'” queathes he, delighting as every syllable prompts a visible glowing pleasure in his friend. 

It is only recently that he's learnt John had a secret affection for poetry, something which he had in the past pursued himself and which he finds himself giddy to take up again now he has someone to share it with.

“Oh, I know this,” says John excitedly, “Um. One of the classics, naturally. Soph...ocles? No, no, no, that's Oedipus... Narcissus was--”

“Ovid.”

“Ovid!” crows John, “Right. Knew it. From _Metamorphoses_ , right? Yeah.”

Henrik's amusement remains plastered on his face rather than spoken aloud, thus hidden. So caught up was John in the rush to be right, he'd overlooked the fact Henrik had called him a narcissist.

“Yeah, if I had one of these, I'd open each session with summing like that. Just to build up the narrative, you know?” enthuses John, gesticulating as he speaks, “Something inspiring. You'd never know who your audience is, right? I mean, if you're cataloguing data you'd want the presentation to be bare-bones, but then why film it? Why waste your resources? This is really something you're out to impress with. Make a statement. Rox  _has_ to utilize this properly – to the maximum, don't you agree?”

“Oh, quite,” answers Henrik blithely, “I think she will. Her enthusiasm is about as catching as yours.”

“An' she's not hard on the eyes either. She has to take advantage of that at some point.”

John leans back against the counter, his eyes glazed over as the possibilities reel through his mind: Roxanna Macmillan clad in a form-fitting coat explaining in that excitable bell-like voice of hers the future of neuroscience. Roxanna Macmillan, Nobel-Prize winner giving a presentation with floating diagrams and computer generated imagery whirling around on screen. To a thumping electronic beat. Roxanna Macmillan surrounded by slackjawed peons–

Hrm. Not bad.

“John, I do hope you're not serious,” says Henrik in a jokey voice. Given the suggestion, he is totally on board. Curiously moreso with John being the suggestor. However in the back of his mind a facsimile of Roxanna's disgruntled face has appeared and she is saying something about 'women' and 'demeaning' and using other words of roughly the same socio-cultural import.

“What? You know what they say – if you've got it, flaunt it.”

“Yes and you know what she'd say.”  
  
“Say? Pff. She'd _say_ nothing. Copies of 'Handmaiden's Tale' laying around isn't worth worrying about. I've read it already. Did you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

The two men gaze pointedly at each other as an awkward silence settles.

“She's our friend. I'm just looking out for her, that's all,” says John after some time, “If she's got enough cash laying about for one of these things, she can put some effort into her presentation.”

Henrik finally comes into shot as he flicks through an instruction manual. He's wearing a very soft-looking grey jumper and an even softer expression.

“Her father got it for her. A gift, I think. A very generous one; she was chuffed to bits about it.”  
She'd cornered Henrik in her dorm-room after receiving it to show it off to him and regale him with stories of her father's kindness and thrift.  
“Considering her mother's condition and all.” he adds for John's benefit.

John's expression has become pensive as he does calculations in his head.

Ah yes - always money, _always_. It was one of the first traits Henrik had really noticed about him. He focused on money the way Henrik imagined one who was homeless might and it worried him. John's resiliance being borne from poverty didn't bear thinking about. So he doesn't.

“Mm. I figured she was middle-class. The NHS would take care of her mum, though?” asks John.

“I have no idea. I'm not English, remember?”

“Right,” John does need reminding sometimes.

“Her father is sacrificing quite a lot for her to be here, I'm reliably informed. It's nice to know she can depend on him.”

At this point, John has begun to toy with the potential of the camera again, moving to lift it from it's seat on a pile of textbooks. The microphone clicks and hisses as it is buffeted around.

He focuses it on Henrik just as he pulls himself out of brooding about the reliability of fathers. Henrik's look of uncertainty and self-consciousness is beautiful even as the focus blurs in and out.

“Stop that.” he murmurs, glancing away.

The camera whirls dizzily about until it rests on what can only be the underside of John's nose.

“What? You know you should get used to being in front of a camera, who knows what the future will bring once we hit the big-league.”

He tries again to point the camera at Henrik, who is not amused.  
“That's for you and Roxanna, then, isn't it.”

“Look at it, come on,” commands John impatiently.

Henrik shoves at his arm. “Cut it out, John.”

“No, you're being stupid.” John shoves him back.

The world is weaving drunkenly back and forth as they spar.

“Stop messing around with it, it's not yo--” is all that Henrik can get out before the camera clearly hits the floor.

The VCR clicks off. 


	3. introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxanna introduces her father to her friends.

With a hiss and snap, a white screen gives way to eerie, shadowy figures trembling wisp-like across the landscape that is fading into view.

Sounds of laughter and young people are distant, blown about on the wind. The sun is out, wind high and vegetation a lush green shade not usually found this early in the year and from the grin on her face, Roxanna Macmillan is lapping it up. The glow of her sunny face could be from the radiant sunbeams or just as easily from within. Her hair is pulled into a messy ponytail and a pen is tucked behind her ear ornamentally.

 Scraggy groups of students shuffle along the walkway in the background; to the fore are well-manacured gardens and a tartan rug spread across the lawn. Roxanna is crouched upon it, preparing herself.

“Alright, let's see: light on,” she hums, her eyes darting about, “and... action!”

With a bell-like laugh she bears the camera across to a makeshift stand, the picture wobbles, going in and out of focus as it is confused by the movement and the glare.

 “Action?” comes a soft, barely audible voice off-screen.

“Yeah, you've got to say action,” retorts Roxanna easily, “It's a film, isn't it?”

There's a snort and no reply. Content, Roxanna turns back to face the screen.  
  
“Hi dad! It's me. Again. I thought since the weather's so lovely here for once, I'd show you around. It's one thing to hear me blathering away about stuff on the phone – I can't believe it took me this long to figure out I can actually just _show_ you what I'm talking about,” she says, gesturing, “It's morning, as you can probably tell. Getting near midday. Saturday, obviously; no classes today.” 

She continues to rattle off her well-wishes and responses to former conversations as well as new questions, new sentiments that spring to mind as she talks until a smartly booted foot nudges her and she stops mid-sentence to look down at it.

“Wh— oh. Yes, alright, alright, I'm getting to it,” she huffs and rolls her eyes, turning back to her illusory father behind the lens, “Sorry! It seems my friends are _impatient_ , so I’ll skip to their part, yeah? So I keep talking about ‘my boys’ all the time, and I know I can’t actually bring them ‘round, so I thought I’d introduce you to them this way. Neat, right?”  
She leans forwards and lifts the camera, gliding it around to face the two ‘boys’, sitting a few paces away.

Both are buried in piles of books, boxes of lunch and assorted stationary. Henrik pushes up his glasses as he reluctantly turns to face the camera, though he gazes straight past it. John is not quite so shy. He is sitting further forward, arm wrapped around the one leg he has drawn up to him and his most well-rehearsed, crooked smile sits pleasingly on his face.

“So these are my two best mates, Henrik Hanssen, (the Swede), and John Gaskell.”

“The Scouser,” adds John affably, giving a short wave and nod.

“…the Swede?” echoes Henrik to noone in particular. His ethnicity hadn’t ever come up as novel to her previously, so he was rather startled to hear it here. Perhaps her father found it so. John elbows him gently.

“Yes! Say something in Swedish,” she gushes with a smile so toothy Henrik cannot resist.

“Uhh. Okej. Om du virkligen vill at jag ska…är det här tillräckligt?”

“See? He sounds perfectly English and then,” Roxanna wiggles her hand around, satisfied.

“Ohhh, now I see. Yes, well I was educated in Britain.”  
  
“Private boardin’ school,” adds John with a snort and Henrik bows his head, smiling awkwardly in tacit admission.  
  
“Bloodywankingham-Twattingshire-Knobbs or summat, wasn’t it? Or just Eton?”

 “…finished?”

“You are the most worldly here among us, Henrik,” soothed Roxanna, “Boston’s basically my first time overseas. Same with you, right John?”

“Yep."  
  
“So we’re all new to this.”  
  
“You’re right,” admits Henrik, scratching his nose, “Sorry.”  
  
“We’re all Neuro, too,” adds John to the camera, “Like y’daughter.”

“Yes! Neuroscience superiority forever!” exclaims Roxanna, “Down with Cardiothoracics, Obstetrics and all other inferior specialities!”

“Amen!” came in unison from the boys.

“We’ve even got a little motto, you know,” says Roxanna excitedly, swivelling the camera around back to herself, “Since old Gustavo called us the Three Musketeers, we decided we might as well embrace it. John came up with it, right?”

The camera dizzily returns to face a beaming John.

“Nothing but the work.”  
“Nothing but the work!” she echoes, “We’re going to destroy everyone else here. They won’t even know what hit ‘em.”

John crawls over to sit next to her, clearly excited by her enthusiasm. Henrik watches on, his spirit buoyed by their energy, but once the camera is off him, returns to his work. Now they’d wound themselves up it would be hard to stop.  
“We’re gunna show these idiots how it’s done. I’ve got to say, your daughter ‘ere: easily the cleverest on campus. She’s got me an’ Henrik beat any day.”

Roxanna grins and wraps her arm around John’s shoulders and one of his wraps around hers in kind. Their pose is unmistakably fraternal, despite their being pressed uncomfortably close together.  
“And he’s the biggest source of hyperbole this side of the Atlantic.”  
  
“That might be true,” he simpers, patting her shoulder, “but don’t sell y’self short. She’s got a work ethic to boot.”  
  
“I learn from the best! Without you two mentoring me, I doubt I’d’ve gotten anywhere.”

Henrik can be heard snorting in the background.  
“Pff, hardly,” agrees John, flicking his gaze back to Henrik a moment, “Nevermind, though. The work you’re doing on Locked-In Syndrome is vital. I know both your parents must be proud of ye, Rox.”

Crimson spreads across her pale cheeks.  
“Yes. I know they are.”  
  
“I’d go into more detail, but I don’t think your old man really cares about the finer points of neurology. Needless to say, she’s innovating in areas that haven’t been looked at properly for decades. It’s astonishing really.”  
“You really think so?” she says in a soft voice, looking shy all the sudden.

“I just said so, didn’t I?” he returns earnestly.

“Flatterer,” she says and whacks him on the arm. John lets out a giggle and releases her from his grip. Taking advantage, she gives him a shove hard enough to tip him over onto his side and smirks triumphantly.

“Gah. Self efficacy, Rox – give it a shot someday.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she returns, “Anyway, dad, enough of Tweedle-dee, let’s go take a look at the campus.” Roxanna reaches for the camera as she stands up.

“Hang on,” exclaims Henrik as he lifts his head and shuts his book, “I’m Tweedle-dum?? I don’t think so.”  
His voice becomes faint as the camera is pointed elsewhere.  
  
“Well I’m not Tweedle-Dum! ‘S her call!”

“Absolute nonsense,” grumbles Henrik, “I want to be the Gryphon. I’d sooner take the March Hare than be stuck as a Tweedle.”

“What, so I’m the Mad Hatter, then?”

“Clearly.” 

Their voices become faint on the wind though their argument was only just beginning. Both can be seen gesticulating animatedly in the background as Roxanna sweeps the camera in a panorama of campus.  
“As you can se—”

The tape shuts off; it’s editor obviously having a singular motive.


End file.
